PURGATORIO, Episode 107. Be Careful Of The Company You Keep In PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 1 - 2

Sapía has finished her amazingly complex speech with the pilgrim Dante . . . or has she? At the opening of Canto XIV, we're not sure who is speaking? Still Sapía? No, two envious souls, leaning against each other, almost gossiping about our pilgrim. And nothing satisfies envy quite like gossip.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this new thing: the opening of a canto in COMEDY in which unnamed (and unknowable!) souls just starting talking out of the blue. Be on guard. They may not be all they seem at first blush.

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Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:34] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, lines 1 - 21. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation about this passage, please scroll down this page.

[03:31] Two penitent souls interrupt the action of PURGATORIO.

[06:00] The opening of canto XIV is a new thing in COMEDY, much as Sapía has identified Dante the pilgrim as a new thing in her world.

[08:19] There are two curious words in this opening dialogue: "our" and "sweetly."

[11:45] These two spirits are apparently quite intimate with each other. Will that intimacy pay off?

[12:50] One of the envious penitents divides Dante's soul from his body . . . and uses Dante's own words to address him.

[15:41] Dante is quite cagey when he answers their question, all the while putting his soul and body back together.

[20:16] Dante replies with one of his own favorite rhetorical techniques: periphrasis. Elsewhere in COMEDY, Dante is pretty forthcoming about his origins.

[22:53] Is Dante modest? Or cagey? Or "just" truthful?

[28:41] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, lines 1 - 21.

And here’s my English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 1 – 21

“Who is that guy, the one who circles our mountain

Before death has given him flight

And who opens his eyes at will . . . and even closes them?”

“I don’t have a clue who he is, but I know he’s not on his own.

Go ahead and ask, since you’re closer to him.

And welcome him sweetly, so he’ll reply.”

Just like that, two spirits, the one leaning on the other,

Were nattering on about me over to my right.

To broach a conversation, they lifted their faces up

And one of them said, “O soul, who is still planted

In your body even while making your way up to heaven,

As an act of charity, console us and tell us

Where you come from and who you are.

For you cause us to marvel at the grace given you—

So much so, since this has never happened before.”

And I [replied]: “Right through the middle of Tuscany

There flows a little stream that’s born in Falterona.

Even after a hundred miles, it flows unsatiated.

“From along its banks, I bring my very personhood.

To tell you both who I am would be speaking without discretion

Because my name doesn’t ring out much . . . at least, yet.”